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The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion.

Thomas Malthus

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Thomas Malthus
Age: 68 †
Born: 1766
Born: February 14
Died: 1834
Died: December 23
Anglican Priest
Demographer
Economist
Essayist
Mathematician
Scientist
Sociologist
Statistician
Warwickshire
England
Thomas R. Malthus
Philosophy
Account
Business
Practical
Firsts
Conclusion
First
Till
Things
Accounts
Ground
Theory
Theories
Ought
Practicals

More quotes by Thomas Malthus

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Thirty or forty proprietors, with incomes answering to between one thousand and five thousand a year, would create a much more effectual demand for the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life, than a single proprietor possessing a hundred thousand a year.
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The redundant population, necessarily occasioned by the prevalence of early marriages, must be repressed by occasional famines, and by the custom of exposing children, which, in times of distress, is probably more frequent than is ever acknowledged to Europeans.
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The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years have all concurred to lead many men into the opinion that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes.
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A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or other in the country that is deserted.
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Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman.
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The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.
Thomas Malthus
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The immediate cause of the increase of population is the excess of the births above deaths and the rate of increase, or the period of doubling, depends upon the proportion which the excess of the births above the deaths bears to the population.
Thomas Malthus
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Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.
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To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted but it is to be feared that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface.
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The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years.
Thomas Malthus
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The transfer of three shillings and sixpence a day to every labourer would not increase the quantity of meat in the country. There is not at present enough for all to have a decent share. What would then be the consequence?
Thomas Malthus
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The perpetual struggle for room and food.
Thomas Malthus
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The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.
Thomas Malthus
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The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support - the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means.
Thomas Malthus
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The doctrine of population has been conspicuously absent, not because I doubt in the least its truth and vast importance, but because it forms no part of the direct problem of economics.
Thomas Malthus
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Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity.
Thomas Malthus
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To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization.
Thomas Malthus
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In general it may be said that demand is quite as necessary to the increase of capital as the increase of capital is to demand.
Thomas Malthus
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The superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice.
Thomas Malthus
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The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.
Thomas Malthus